Like That
by Scribere Est Agere
Summary: Something about stripes. And a certain blueness.


**Title:** Like That**  
Author:** Scribere Est Agere**  
Pairing:** Goren/Eames**  
Spoilers:** After _Untethered_  
**Rating:** PG  
**Disclaimer: **These characters do not belong to me.

**Summary:** Something about stripes. And a certain blueness.

/

Later what she remembered most about that first day was the tie.

She remembered his voice of course, the halting and rumbling of her dreams; and his hands, his _hands_ — gesturing, fluttering, two pale birds in mid-flight — and his actual presence, larger than life, filling up all that space after so long empty. She remembered all those things, of course. But at night when she was alone and replayed the happenings of the day in her head for the hundredth time, it was the tie that she saw most vividly.

The goddamn tie.

The tie with the blue stripes. A light (baby?) blue tie with certain blue stripes she couldn't put a name to immediately: Cobalt? Persian? Cerulean? It took her all day to figure it out.

So many shades of blue in the world, really. She needed to puzzle it out.

It made her absurdly happy to do so.

His hands and his voice and the _tie_.

Some memories are just like that.

/

She'd called him the night before under the pretense of reminding him of their 8 a.m. meeting with Ross.

"I know, Eames," he'd said too quietly, too patiently. "I called _you_ about it…two days ago. Remember?"

"Yeah," she said. "I just…" There was a rather long pause during which she closed her eyes and chewed on a ragged thumb nail. _If I was the kind of woman who indulged in manicures._

"Eames?"

"Uh huh?"

"Everything is going to be all right," he said and she pictured him smiling, pictured him sitting across from her in the morning finally. _Finally_. She smiled, too.

"Promise?" She felt stupid saying it, but she said it anyway. She needed to say it, and needed to hear his response, because she knew what his response would be.

"Promise."

_Good boy._

She sighed.

"I know."

"Really?"

"Yes." Chew. Chew. "Yes."

"Okay."

She willed her hand away from her mouth. She shoved it between her knees and held it there tight, captive.

"Eames?"

"Yes?"

"See you in the morning." It was not quite a question, but almost, and the _almost_ made her nervous. Very nervous.

"8 a.m."

Smile.

"I _know_."

"All _right_."

She hung up. Her hand hurt. She examined the cuticle. Tiny beads of red blood. Fire engine. Venetian?

She felt like weeping.

Some phone conversations are just like that.

/

As it turned out, the only one truly celebrating his return was Eames. Ross looked like he was having a lot of trouble swallowing (he drank an entire bottle of water and two cups of coffee during their tense 20-minute meeting), and his face was an unnatural shade of ecru (same as her living room walls, she later decided). The other detectives (Logan, Price, Diluzio) slapped his back jovially and made some loud, half-assed jokes — "Didn't even know you were gone!/Where you _been_, pal?/Some vacation, huh buddy?" — (Pal? Buddy? She cringed, _cringed_) to which Bobby half-laughed and half-grinned and half-shrugged, but no one, no one she realized at some point with a staccato heart flutter, cared. No one gave a _flying fuck_, really, if Bobby Goren came back or not. Went batshit or not. Died, or not.

No one.

But her.

She squared her shoulders.

All right, then.

They were (somewhat understandably) tired of his antics, his mania, his shouting, his quirks and quarks, his shoving books off desks, his tics and talks and his essential … Bobby-ness.

Everything that made him who he was and the person she … well. Worked with. Right. That's as far as she was willing to go, at the moment.

/

They ate at Peking Palace and shared plates of lemon chicken and fried mushroom rice and some other crappy Chinese food that she was too tired to argue about. He was _back_ and he was _here_ and really, today, that was all she cared about. That and the fucking tie. He talked little but she could feel his eyes on her every time she looked down or away, every time her thumb nail found its way into her mouth.

"You're chewing," he said at one point during lunch.

"It's what you _do_ with food," she shot back, grinning despite herself.

"You're not chewing _food_," he said quietly and she shoved her hand between her knees, clamped them tight, bit her lip hard.

"Oh—" she started to say but her cut her off. He wanted to touch her somehow, her hand or wrist or that soft spot on the side of her neck, but she was too far away and it would be too obvious to slide his hand over at this point or—

"Eames," he leaned across the beige formica table and she leaned back against the vermilion naugahyde seat. She didn't know what else to do, where else to lean, really, he looked so good and smelled so _good_ and she'd missed him _so much_—

"That meeting went all right, don't you think?" she choked out, grabbing her glass of water, teeth clattering againt the chipped rim. He heard her gulp several times, watched water dribble down her chin, saw her swipe frantically at it with her sleeve. He swallowed then, he leaned back slowly because he knew what she was doing, what she was avoiding. He shoved some chicken into his mouth and nodded.

"Yeah," he crumpled a napkin between his fingers. He shredded it, actually, and tried to not look at her. "Yeah. It was…pretty much what I expected."

/

Every time she looked up there was the tie, the tie with the blue stripes directly in her line of vision.

Cobalt? Dark? Denim?

Prussian.

No.

_Shit_.

/

They made it through the first day, barely. There were falters and slips. They were almost unused to one another and that realization made her chest hitch because it was true. He was still quick and to the point and his mind, his fine, accurate mind was still true, but still. He was…fragile. She could think of no other word. He was like shadows at dusk. Powder. Sky. Not steel, not yet. At one point she saw him lean against the crimson brick alley wall, press his fingers to the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, and she just about asked him if he was _all right_ when he suddenly straightened, eyes snapped open, took a deep breath, saw her watching him and his eyes flashed sapphire and he pushed away from the wall and it was like it had never happened at all.

Oh. Oh, Bobby.

The tie.

Eyptian? Indigo? Royal?

Still, no.

/

She drove him home that night, just because. He didn't say much and she was busy with traffic and before she knew it, they were there. And it was getting dark, of course, being April. She wanted to see his face. Not enough time, she thought, rather frantically. Never enough time.

"Thanks, Eames," he said.

She nodded.

"Not just for this…" he waved vaguely. She knew what to do then, but how she knew she would never allow herself to think about too much.

She grabbed his hand — the waving one as it hovered in mid-air between them — and squeezed it hard. And because they never did that kind of thing — touched each other — it startled him. She felt his hand, all the skin and the bones and sinews beneath, tense under hers, and for a moment she simply concentrated on that. Had she ever held his hand before? No. Touched his skin, even? An accidental brush, maybe, through layers of clothing, probably, but not this, never this. She stared hard at that simple connection in the darkening vehicle and tried to think why not. I'm not doing anything wrong, she thought. This, she assured herself, is just two friends, sitting together, holding hands. Right? You're a shitty liar, Alex. But, she didn't let go, she just held on tighter, which startled him (and infinitely pleased him) even more. This, she thought, is just _this_. When she looked up, he was looking at her, eyes dark and full of something she didn't dare name. She saw a ghost of a smile and then it was gone. Then he turned his hand, slow and warm and deliberate, inside hers so his palm was pressed against her palm and his fingers almost completely enveloped her entire hand. She smiled: So, that's how it goes. They sat like that for a full seven seconds — she counted _onemississppitwomississippithree —_ before she finally said what she needed to say.

"Midnight."

He looked at the dashboard clock, confused. It was 7:46. What a day. What a _life_.

"No. No, your _tie_. The…stripes. Midnight blue." Now she was glad for early darkness because she was sure she was red. Sangria, cerise, scarlet? Tomato red, probably. Very…unromantic. And he _did_ laugh and for a fleeting moment she thought he might pull her to him and…she pulled her hand away. He smiled again, a bit more than a ghost this time. He leaned towards her, conspiratorially, she thought later.

"See you tomorrow."

Not a question, she realized with a blooming of relief. Not a question.

She nodded, but chose not to say a word.

Some relationships are just like that.

/

_Fin_


End file.
